Structural movement

acealfa

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Your solicitor sounds appalling. You signed the contract and then she exchanged before the agreed date. This went ahead without insurance cover being in place on the property.

When I exchanged I had to send the policy to my solicitor as a final condition before they would exchange.

She hasn't left you with much choice other than to be sparing with the truth with a new policy.

Some insurers like Bureauinsure and Aviva will cover as long as there hasn't been any movement in the last 5 years. I presume you can say that.

Just had a long conversation with a chap at Bureainsure. The situation is that I simply don't have enough information so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. He says movement is movement be it structural or subsidence. Ultimately it comes down to my solicitor to get it pushed through, shes got me into this mess so it's up to her to sort it out. I don't blame in the sense she could see I was enthusiastic and thought she was helping move thing along but in hindsight wish she hadn't.

Really my only options now are;

-Don't take out insurance & see if it goes through
-Take out insurance without subsidence cover & see if it goes through

If it goes through I've got plenty of time to get a structural engineers report.
If it doesn't I'll have to ring the lender and arrange for them to get an engineers report & pray there isn't anything major.

I'm confident there isn't but still a messy situation.

ruggedtoast

acealfa wrote: »

Just had a long conversation with a chap at Bureainsure. The situation is that I simply don't have enough information so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. He says movement is movement be it structural or subsidence. Ultimately it comes down to my solicitor to get it pushed through, shes got me into this mess so it's up to her to sort it out. I don't blame in the sense she could see I was enthusiastic and thought she was helping move thing along but in hindsight wish she hadn't.

Really my only options now are;

-Don't take out insurance & see if it goes through
-Take out insurance without subsidence cover & see if it goes through

If it goes through I've got plenty of time to get a structural engineers report.
If it doesn't I'll have to ring the lender and arrange for them to get an engineers report & pray there isn't anything major.

I'm confident there isn't but still a messy situation.

Your solicitor has dropped you right in it. I hope you are keeping a record of what she has said.

She shouldn't have let exchange go ahead, nervermind completion, without insurance in place. This is as much to protect the lender as yourself.

Whether this is something that the lender would actively check on I don't know. Maybe someone who knows about conveyancing could jump in here.

If I were you I would start again with one of these and say there has not been a claim for subsidence and the surveyor says the movement is historic.

http://www.money.co.uk/home-insurance/subsidence-house-insurance.htm

You need to get it insured.

davidmcn

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Whether this is something that the lender would actively check on I don't know. Maybe someone who knows about conveyancing could jump in here.

What happens between exchange and completion is entirely the purchaser's problem. The lender's funds aren't at risk until completion.

If I were you I would start again with one of these and say there has not been a claim for subsidence and the surveyor says the movement is historic.

Yes, as I said above I'm not sure why there's such a meal being made of this. Historic non-progressive movement is a bog-standard comment on surveys of older properties, I'm not convinced it means a great deal.

kingstreet

I agree.

In 32 years I have never once had a problem where the valuation report mentions long-standing non-progressive movement. It is typical of properties in the first fifteen years of their lives and many tagged like this have stood for 100 years since.

The OP may be creating the perfect storm by reporting this as "subsidence, heave & landslip" when it clearly isn't. The surveyor has not indicated any issues with the soil or anything which may be creating subsidence problems, such as tree roots or broken drains?

If he/she persists with this, the only outcome is going to be a requirement for a structural engineer's report which would be completely unnecessary.

class2ldn

Problem is a lot of insurers are now asking if tge property has had any movement and not differentiating between movement and subsidence.
When I had the same problem a couple of the insurers I spoke to thought any movement was subsidence and that was it. Wasn't worth me trying to explain it as they only asked of any movement.
What do you answer? You can't say no and then in the event of a claim say well I thought you only meant subsidence.
We are aware that it may be an issue come sale time because most people and insurers don't understand the difference.
It's a right royal pain as you don't want to say no to it and have that worry yet if you say yes they don't want to know.
Seriously try direct line and see what they say.

kingstreet

I've just checked the L&G Giology quote system and it says;-

"In the last fifteen years, the property to be insured has not:

been affected by flood
been affected by subsidence, heave, landslip or structural movement
been underpinned or provided with any other structural support."

So, long-standing non-progressive means all those can be ticked no, IMHO.

dc197

class2ldn wrote: »

Problem is a lot of insurers are now asking if tge property has had any movement and not differentiating between movement and subsidence.

That's right.
One just has to find an insurer who does differentiate, or provides a time limit.
There's a thread or post on here somewhere that's dedicated to a list of such insurers.

acealfa

I applied with legal and general this morning but for some reason they wouldn't even quote me online. I can only assume it's because I've had insurance cancelled because of this all. I will be calling direct line in the morning but I'm pretty sure they use the same under writers?

ruggedtoast

acealfa wrote: »

I applied with legal and general this morning but for some reason they wouldn't even quote me online. I can only assume it's because I've had insurance cancelled because of this all. I will be calling direct line in the morning but I'm pretty sure they use the same under writers?

Why have you had cancelled insurance?

teneighty

The thing to bear in mind is that the vast majority of people who carry out mortgage valuations and basic homebuyers surveys is that are really valuers more than surveyors.

Their training and experience includes very little real construction and building defect analysis. They use the phrase "appears to be long standing and non progressive" because they have noticed a crack but haven't got a clue what has caused it but don't want to jeopardise the sale so flag it up with just enough ambiguity to fend off any claims.

A Building Surveyor or Structural Engineer should be able to give a more detailed analysis of the movement although sometimes you can only give a definite result if the cracks are measured and monitored over a period of several months.

For the purposes of insurance I would adopt the rather generous interpretation that long standing and non progressive means any movement is historical and stopped many years ago and does not need to be declared.